In a sign of just how arid the DIY retail channel has become for Intel, Tom's Hardware reports that the new socket flagship LGA2066 HEDT processor model Intel sneaked into its product-stack, the Core i9-9990XE, is restricted to the OEM/SI (system integrator) channel. Even to OEMs, ordering a tray of i9-9990XE chips isn't as simple as ordering other chips, such as the i9-9900K. Apparently, Intel has been running secret online auctions that are OEM-only, for these chips. OEMs get to bid on the per-chip price in n-unit tray quantities.

Workstation integrator Puget Systems was able to score itself some i9-9990XE inventory at USD $2,300 per chip. Puget Systems last week received its first batch of chips from Intel, and released performance benchmarks. At this price, the i9-9990XE is being sold at a 21% premium over the retail-channel SEP price of the i9-9980XE, and a whopping 65% premium over the i9-9940X. Intel can't shake off comparisons between the i9-9990XE and the i9-9940X because both chips are 14-core/28-thread with 19.25 MB shared L3 cache, with the i9-9990XE only offering significantly higher clock-speeds, but at an astounding TDP of 255W. The i9-9990XE was shown beating the 18-core i9-9980XE in a variety of HEDT-relevant benchmarks.

For high-end workstation price per performance matters less than increased productivity. There are many who would benefit from such a product, if we ignore the massive TDP.

The real problem is that this is a cherry-picked golden sample, Intel simply can't make enough of these for widespread availability. Teasing a product you really can't buy is annoying to say the least.

The Core i9 9990XE is being sold without any warranty by Intel, and while CPU failure rates are generally low even a single DOA or failure for a customer in the field would be an expensive loss. Further, if a customer has a failure and we are out of stock there is no guarentee we could ever acquire a replacement... especially once Intel stops the auctions for this chip.

But all of it is irrelevant for any business if the new CPU has no warranty and non-existent availability. You don't wanna run your professional suite on a purple unicorn, that's why Puget decided to stick with 9980XE, and that's why most reviews still tend to recommend 7980XE over both "refreshes".

The whole point of "warranty" as consumers know it is to have a unified, simple law that protects consumers in all transactions. As a result you don't have to negotiate a 10-page agreement every time you buy trousers or USB cables.
It's different in B2B transactions. There's usually no warranty enforced by state law. There are only agreements.
So Dell and Intel may agree that e.g. the first 10 CPUs dead are covered by Dell and everything above is paid by Intel.
There are insurance products for this kind of scenario as well.
Why do you care anyway? It's OEMs' risk and they can price it accordingly. They may put a premium just on 9990XE workstations (make them even more expensive) or they may spread it across the whole lineup and you'll never notice.

For the likes of Dell or Lenovo this won't be a problem.
For a small company like Puget it's a bigger risk, but, as you can see, they decided to take it anyway.

No Xeon gets even close to 9990XE in a combination of clocks and core count. It's a great compromise and the CPU would be an absolute beast for many real world scenarios.

But you're right. The CPU doesn't know whether it's for work or for gaming. And that's the whole point of HEDT products. So it is perfect in what it wants to be.
It might be that this CPU is interesting for someone called "a prosumer". I'm not a huge believer in this phenomenon, but you can ask AMD fans in one of the Radeon VII topics. ;-)

Since we're talking about workstations, I've ruled out overclocking. I hope this is obvious.

BTW: since, as you said, this is basically an aggresively binned 9940X, why are people so mad about the price? Some companies will sell you binned intel consumer parts (e.g. 8700K) for as much as 50% premium. I hardly see anyone criticizing that.

Since we're talking about workstations, I've ruled out overclocking. I hope this is obvious.

BTW: since, as you said, this is basically an aggresively binned 9940X, why are people so mad about the price? Some companies will sell you binned intel consumer parts (e.g. 8700K) for as much as 50% premium. I hardly see anyone criticizing that.

I just watched over a few weeks a builder do an insane 9980XE build.
A $15,000 build at that.
And it was for sure a customer that wanted Epeen, cause it was more of a "fantasy" build, but it did turn out nice tho.
What is the 90XE even for, since the 80XE is out

I don't understand your post at all.
Why is paying over $2000 for a factory overclocked CPU stupid?
Would paying $2000 for a non-overclocked CPU be smart? Less/more stupid? It's not like $2000+ CPUs haven't existed before 9990XE.

I don't understand your post at all.
Why is paying over $2000 for a factory overclocked CPU stupid?
Would paying $2000 for a non-overclocked CPU be smart? Less/more stupid? It's not like $2000+ CPUs haven't existed before 9990XE.

Why anyone with brains would pay over 2000eur/usd for a cherry-picked, factory overclocked 9940X? Like I said, the price goes "Apple", like 100eur/usd for 100MHz when comparing those... Why this instead of the real flagship, 18-core 9980XE? MOAR CLOCKS? Yeah.. Clock speed was the thing when we had Pentium 4.